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Andraez “Greedy” Williams: Round 2, Pick 46

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One of the better articles to come out on Greedy's potential - includes a lot of promising quotes from LSU Defensive Coordinator Dave Aranda including his thoughts on his "tackling woes":

"The thing I appreciate about Greedy is that he pushes people to be better. When they see how hard he works, and they see what he does with film, and they see the work he does with his footwork, and his hand placement and his press — just the all-around part of him, they’ll recognize and appreciate it. People are going to be fans of his really quick."
 
He is. But it’s at the expense of getting hurt.

Both Denzel Ward and Greedy Williams would be wise to work on the form in their tackling. I think it's a fallacy to say "tackling causes concussions". Bad form and technique cause concussions.
 
Both Denzel Ward and Greedy Williams would be wise to work on the form in their tackling. I think it's a fallacy to say "tackling causes concussions". Bad form and technique cause concussions.
That's an interesting topic for Ward.

Generally, players were taught to tackle with their eyes--"see your target." This ensures that the head is up with spine in neutral alignment, not dipping the crown of the helmet, preventing spinal cord injury. Get the head in front of the numbers, wrap, and drive through the ball-carrier with your legs to the ground.

In terms of form tackling, Ward does all of these things. Prototype tackling on the high school level.

The interesting part is he's having to un-train himself since he's 5'11, 180 lbs, trying to take on 250 lb NFL tight ends. Form tackling wasn't built for this scenario. Frankly, he's too aggressive for his own good. An undersized corner must go low on these guys, taking on the lower half and getting out of harm. When possible, use the sideline, etc.

It's so weird trying to take the aggressive form-tackling out of a kid, but here we are with Ward out of necessity. The NFL is truly a different beast.

For that, I imagine that's such a tough adjustment for him to make.
 
Great stuff. Still seems like the resources spent on safety (both in salary and draft capital) haven't caught up to the value, specially for Ed Reed, Earl Thomas types. I wonder if that changes soon.
 
I really think pass rush (and pass blocking) is situational.

I was on record saying it last year, and I still believe that one of the places this team can have a competitive advantage moving forward is by not spending money on a franchise cornerstone LT. Kitchens was able to scheme out the need for a guy who can hold off an edge rusher for 5 seconds by building an offense based around quick reads and timing routes. If the ball gets out of Baker's hand quickly, the opposing team's pass rush is negated.

This is also exactly what New England has been doing forever. If Brady gets the ball out quickly, you can't sack him.

I'd be really interested to see how those pass rush and pass blocking correlations look against certain offenses. I think offenses that take longer time for pass plays to develop (Pittsburgh comes to mind) require better pass blocking and are more impacted by pass rushing.

What this says for our defense is that we should continue to invest in the secondary--but also ensure we're using our personnel properly. I have high hopes that Wilks is a guy who will scheme for his talent, rather than forcing his talent to hit a desired scheme. If he allows Ward and Greedy to play man coverage on the boundaries, I'm excited. If he forces them to play mainly zone, I'm going to be foaming at the mouth for a new DC very quickly.
 
I don't remember what poster had said it earlier in the week but they basically made a point/ posted an article that great pass rushers are more or less a thing of the past. Tye game is too fast for most to have a significant impact on the game.

Instead it was tye secondary that really support tye defense and a great CB is worth more than a great DE. These numbers support that.
 
I have high hopes that Wilks is a guy who will scheme for his talent, rather than forcing his talent to hit a desired scheme. If he allows Ward and Greedy to play man coverage on the boundaries, I'm excited. If he forces them to play mainly zone, I'm going to be foaming at the mouth for a new DC very quickly.
This is my fear with Wilks.

He did not fit his scheme to personnel in Arizona and he was basically always in zone despite having a strong pair of corners.

It’s a sub-package league, but he was also in the nickel something like 85-90% of the time including in goal line situations.

I believe he’s a good DC. My hope is that the one year Arizona stint was him trying to build a franchise in his image for long term and living with the short term bumps in the road—because he certainly didn’t adapt in the short term.
 

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